Page 72 of Rival to Resist
“Your brother is a duke. If a seat in Parliament is your wish, you could obtain it elsewhere easily enough.”
He did not respond immediately, but he wore a wry smile when he did. “All my life, I have lived in the shadow of my siblings—even before William inherited the dukedom. As the fourth son, little is expected of me. I am overlooked. Underestimated. Forgotten. I came to Trelowen in search of a seat that would give me the recognition I have so long craved.”
Caroline ignored the tightness in her throat. She hated hearing him speak of the real reason he had come into her life—the real reason he remained in it.
“All my life, and in Trelowen more than ever, it has seemedas though everything I wish for is within sight but just out of reach.”
He took a step toward her.
Air swirled around, licking at her cheeks and whipping her skirts around her legs, but in her lungs, she could find none.
“It is not your votes I have come to covet most, Lady Radcliffe. It is your respect. Your admiration. Your trust.” He brushed aside a lock of hair the wind had blown into her face. “It is you.” He took another step closer, his eyes almost pleading with her. “Caroline…”
She closed her eyes as the wind brought her whispered name to her, then carried away every thought but what it would feel like to be held by him, to feel his lips on hers.
“Every time I close my eyes, your face is there waiting,” he whispered. “I cannot sleep without dreaming of you.”
The last bit of resistance in her fractured down the middle, and before she knew what had happened, her fingers were gripping his coat, his hands finding her waist, the reins of both horses hanging forgotten as their lips came together in a crash like the waves on the sand.
Unlike the waves, neither of them retreated but drew closer.
Caroline had never wanted something, someoneso fiercely as in that moment. And she was not alone in her desire. His lips took hers again and again, and her body flushed with warmth at the feeling of being so wanted.
He kissed her as he had debated her—giving her free rein, then returning with his own challenge in a dance unlike anything she had ever experienced. She began to feel as though the touch of his fingers on the small of her back and the press of his thumb against her waist were the only things keeping her from unraveling.
A gull screeched above, and they broke apart.
They stared at one another, the sea roaring just as it had before their kiss, as though nothing had changed.
But everything had.
In his eyes burned the same fire she felt inside herself. It should have thrilled her, but instead it frightened her. Not because it burned but because shewantedto be consumed until she was nothing but ash and glowing embers.
“I should not have doubted your abilities as a rake,” she said, trying for a lightness entirely at odds with the rushing of her pulse and the pounding of her heart. “They are quite…adequate.” She touched a gloved finger to the edge of her lips, which tingled.
He regarded her for a moment, his expression inscrutable. “Adequate,” he repeated. “How very differently I would describe it.”
“And how would you?”
His gaze took her in for a moment before he responded. “Have you ever wished for something only to find it eclipsed even your wildest imaginings?” He put a hand to her cheek and stared into her eyes. “I have tasted bliss and now must live with the crippling fear that I shall lose it as quickly as I found it.”
She swallowed, staring up at him as the words settled within her and wound through every vein.
It had been a mistake to kiss Frederick Yorke.
Not because she had not wanted to, for heaven knew she had. Because she had wanted it so much. His kiss had cracked open something inside her, a want so profound that she feared it had no nadir.
“What is it?” His brow furrowed as he watched her, the wound from wrestling still faintly visible.
She thought of the sack race and how disappointed Oswald had been with her behavior.
Her chest tightened. What would her behavior prove to him?
She had bristled when he had warned her against Mr. Yorke, but had she not proven him right since then?
“I must return to Trevenna,” she said.
Mr. Yorke’s brow knit. “Have I upset you?”
